MTN Group rejigs management team

MTN’s old hand Phuthuma Nhleko on Thursday announced a change in the company’s “operating structure with a view to strengthening operational oversight, leadership, governance and regulatory compliance across its 22 country operations in Africa and the Middle East.” By Gugu Lourie

So that’s great Nhleko is making sure that new ideas get implemented at MTN.

He has resolved to restructure MTN into three regions – namely West and Central Africa, South and East Africa and Middle East and North Africa.

To strengthen the group structure, MTN has also made a number of senior appointments.

Effective 1 December 2015 Jyoti Desai assumed the new position of group chief operating officer.

She will be based in Johannesburg and reports to the executive chairman, Phuthuma Nhleko. Desai has 14 years’ experience at MTN. She has previously held the positions of Chief Information Officer at MTN Nigeria, was COO of MTN Irancell and was recently seconded to support the Nigerian country operations.

The company said it will announce her replacement soon. Two regional vice presidents have been appointed, also reporting to Nhleko.

The VP for WECA is Karl Toriola, with Ismail Jaroudi the VP for MENA. The VP for SEA will be announced soon.

Based in Nigeria, Toriola has been at MTN for 10 years, having held senior operational roles at MTN Group and MTN Iran. He was formerly also the chief technology officer at MTN Nigeria and CEO at MTN Cameroon. Jaroudi has been CEO of MTN Syria since 2006. Prior to this he held senior operational roles for Investcom’s subsidiaries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Also reporting to the Nhleko is the new group executive for M&A, Matthew Odgers. The former head of TMT for Africa & the Middle East and head of investment banking for MENA at UBS, Odgers led UBS’s overall relationship with MTN. The search for the MTN Group CEO is underway and remains a priority.

“This revised structure and strengthened leadership will improve operational oversight and increase management capacity. This will enable MTN to continue to realise its strategy and vision, while also ensuring we achieve high governance standards and robust risk mitigation,” said Nhleko.